Canadian businesses ramp up AI in project management despite tight budgets, Capterra 2025 survey finds

Canadian Managers Bet on AI-Powered Project Management to Do More With Less

Macroeconomic pressure isn't slowing software spend in Canada. In Capterra's 2025 Project Management Software Trends Survey, 57% of Canadian project managers say AI features triggered their latest PM software purchase. Over half (53%) are increasing PM software investment this year, even as 51% list budget constraints as a top challenge-higher than the global average.

The bet is clear: AI-enabled tools to automate tasks, surface insights, and improve forecasting so teams can deliver with fewer people and tighter timelines.

Why budgets are shifting

• Adding capabilities slightly edges out price inflation as the top reason for higher spend: 25% vs. 23%.
• Managers expect the most impact from AI in three areas over the next 12 months: task automation, predictive analytics, and actionable insights.
• With US tariff uncertainty and general cost pressure, Canadian firms are prioritizing tools that increase throughput, not just headcount.

Security is now a buying criterion, not a checkbox

PM and collaboration suites hold budgets, contracts, pricing, and client deliverables. That draw makes them targets. In the survey, 40% of Canadian respondents say security concerns triggered their last PM software purchase, and 67% rate security as a critical evaluation feature.

Practical takeaway: treat PM platforms like finance systems. Push for SSO/MFA, role-based access, audit logs, data residency options, vendor SOC 2/ISO 27001, and clear AI data handling policies. For reference, see guidance from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security on cloud and software risk management: Software supply chain security.

The ROI gap: adoption, skills, and integration

Buying AI features is easy. Making them pay back is where teams stall. Forty-one percent of Canadian project managers cite AI adoption as their top software challenge. Another 42% say integrating new tools into existing workflows is a leading challenge-higher than any other country surveyed.

Skills are a constraint too: 37% report a lack of AI skills on staff. Without training, configuration, and process adjustments, promising features sit idle.

People still decide outcomes

AI won't resolve misalignment or friction. Over half (53%) of Canadian project managers say they've increased their use of emotional intelligence since adopting AI. Clear communication, expectation-setting, and conflict resolution remain the lever for throughput-especially as automation changes how work moves across teams.

Your 90-day plan to capture value

• Define two high-frequency use cases. Examples: automate status updates and risk summaries; use predictive analytics for schedule slippage alerts. Set simple KPIs: cycle time, on-time delivery, variance.
• Run a limited pilot. One team, two AI features, four weeks. Document before/after metrics and friction points.
• Tighten governance. Enforce SSO/MFA, least-privilege roles, data retention rules, and vendor AI data-use restrictions. Log who can export, fine-tune, or connect external data sources.
• Integrate into the workflow. Map today's process, then mark where automation triggers, human review, and handoffs occur. Remove duplicate steps and update SOPs.
• Upskill the team. Short, role-based training on prompts, automation rules, and exception handling beats long courses. If you need curated options by job, see AI courses by job.
• Set adoption cadence. Weekly 30-minute review: what saved time, what broke, what to standardize. Retire features that don't move KPIs.
• Refresh your vendor checklist. Must-haves: audit logs, export controls, API rate limits, data residency choices, SOC 2/ISO 27001, clear AI training data policies, sandbox environment.

What this means for your 2025 plan

Reallocate budget from "nice to have" apps to PM platforms with proven automation and analytics. Focus on adoption, not just licensing. Invest in security and skills so AI features land in daily workflows-and actually reduce cycle times.

Source: Capterra's 2025 Project Management Software Trends Survey of 2,500+ project managers, including 227 in Canada.